Tuesday, February 14, 2012

My wife and I saw the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Puccini’s Tosca yesterday evening. I had already seen it in 2008, but this performance had a completely different (and far superior) cast. The conductor, Paolo Carignani, was especially fine, controlling everything without seeming to (we were sitting in the first row, directly behind him) and giving the performance wonderful pace. But this post is not meant to be a review, so I'll stop. Kudos, though, to Adrianne Pieczonka who was spectacular as Tosca.

On the subway ride home, we both kept pretty much to ourselves. I can’t speak to my wife’s reason, but I was contemplating the nature of a great story. That has continued into this morning and spilled over into this week’s Type M posting.

Tosca is one of the most popular of operas and the reason for that is because of the natures of the characters as much as Puccini’s glorious music. Not much really happens in the opera’s plot. It can be summed up in very few words. The cast is very small: only three characters with the odd bit of help by some others who sing very little. Cavaradossi is an artist from a good family and gets mixed up in politics, helping a political prisoner avoid the police. Tosca is his lover, a simple and devout opera singer with a bit of a jealous streak. Pitted against them is the vile Scarpia, the head of the Roman police who wants to execute Cavaradossi and force Tosca to submit herself to him. All are drawn in a very melodramatic way. And by the final curtain, all are dead: one through murder (Scarpia), one through treachery (Cavaradossi) and one through suicide (Tosca). Not very nice, eh?

But audiences have eaten it all up since the opera’s first performance in 1900, even though critics have been less kind, right from the beginning.

And why is that? Because the libretto (taken from the play La Tosca by Victorien Sardou) is just so universal. The villain is someone you can really hiss. Scarpia is a true shit of the first water. Cavaradossi is somewhat of a cypher to me in that he seems to be a bit of a dolt in many ways. But Tosca, ah Tosca, is such a genuinely tragic person, someone who doesn’t deserve any of what happens to her. Her second act aria, the famous “Vissi d’arte” (“I lived for art, I lived for love, never did I harm a living creature...why, O Lord, why do you repay me thus?”) lays it all out for us. And we all just buy into it. Why? Because it rings so true. We immediately understand the tragedy of her circumstances.

I’m currently writing the sequel to my forthcoming novel, The Fallen One, and the main character is someone who is tragic in much the same way (she also happens to be an opera singer). In both novels, Marta Hendriks finds herself in much the same place as Floria Tosca. She is beset by evil not of her own making. And like Tosca, she responds to her situation in ways that makes everything worse. I didn’t realize until last night just how close the connection between the two heroines actually is. I have to redouble my efforts in making this connection even stronger.

I can only hope that in the end I will have drawn my own character in a way that will resonate as successfully as Tosca does with audiences of readers who eventually happen upon my two novels.

Rick Blechta writes on Tuesdays

Barbara Fradkin writes on alternate Wednesdays

Sybil Johnson writes on Alternate Wednesdays

John Corrigan writes on alternate Thursdays

Donis Casey writes on alternate Thursdays

Charlotte Hinger writes on alternate Fridays

Frankie Bailey writes on Alternate Fridays

Vicki Delany writes on the second weekend of every month

Mario Acevedo writes on the 4th Saturday of each month

Aline Templeton

Aline Templeton lives in Edinburgh in a house with a balcony overlooking the beautiful city skyline. Her series featuring DI Marjory Fleming is set in beautiful Galloway, in South-west Scotland. alinetempleton.co.uk

Marianne Wheelaghan

Marianne is from Edinburgh. She left home at seventeen. After a heap of travelling, which included living in Kiribati, the third most remote country in the world, she ended back in Edinburgh where she still lives very happily. Her crime mysteries feature DS Louisa Townsend, The Scottish Lady Detective, and are mostly set in the Pacific. Read more about Marianne and her books on her blog: www.mariannewheelaghan.co.uk and at @MWheelaghan

Rick Blechta

Rick has two passions in life, mysteries and music, and his thrillers contain liberal doses of both. He has two upcoming releases, Roses for a Diva, his sequel to The Fallen One, for Dundurn Press, and for Orca’s Rapid Reads series, The Boom Room, a second book featuring detectives Pratt & Ellis. You can learn more about what he’s up to at www.rickblechta.com. From the musical side, Rick leads a classic soul band in Toronto. Check out SOULidifiedband.com. And lastly, being a former line cook with an interest in all things culinary, he has a blog dedicated to food: A Man for All Seasonings.

Barbara Fradkin

Barbara Fradkin is a retired psychologist with a fascination for how we turn bad. Her dark short stories haunt the Ladies Killing Circle anthologies, but she is best known for her award-winning series featuring the quixotic, exasperating Ottawa Police Inspector Michael Green, published by Dundurn Press. The ninth book, The Whisper of Legends, was published in April 2013. Visit Barbara at barbarafradkin.com.

Sybil Johnson

Sybil Johnson’s love affair with reading began in kindergarten with “The Three Little Pigs.” Visits to the library introduced her to Encyclopedia Brown, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and a host of other characters. Fast forward to college where she continued reading while studying Computer Science. After a rewarding career in the computer industry, Sybil decided to try her hand at writing mysteries. Her short fiction has appeared in Mysterical-E and Spinetingler Magazine, among others. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, she now lives in Southern California where she enjoys tole painting, studying ancient languages and spending time with friends and family. Find her at www.authorsybiljohnson.com.

John R Corrigan

John R. Corrigan is D.A. Keeley, author of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agent Peyton Cote series, which is set along the Maine-Canada border. Bitter Crossing (summer 2014) will be the first of at least three novels in the series. Born in Augusta, Maine, he lives with his wife and three daughters at Northfield Mount Hermon School in western Massachusetts, where he is English department chair, a teacher, a hockey coach, and may very well be the only mystery writer in North America who also serves as a dorm parent to 50 teenage girls. A Mainer through and through, he tries to get to Old Orchard Beach, Maine, as often as possible. You can see what he's up to by visiting www.amazon.com/author/DAKeeley or dakeeleyauthor.blogspot.com or on Twitter (@DAKeeleyAuthor).

Donis Casey

Donis is the author of six Alafair Tucker Mysteries. Her award-winning series, featuring the sleuthing mother of ten children, is set in Oklahoma during the booming 1910s. Donis is a former teacher, academic librarian, and entrepreneur. She lives in Tempe, AZ, with her husband, poet Donald Koozer. The latest Alafair Tucker novel, The Wrong Hill to Die On (Poisoned Pen Press, 2012), is available in paper or electronic format wherever books are sold. Readers can enjoy the first chapter of each book on her web site at www.doniscasey.com.

Frankie Bailey

Frankie Y. Bailey is a criminal justice professor who focuses on crime, history, and American culture. Her current project is a book about dress, appearance, and criminal justice. Her mystery series featuring crime historian Lizzie Stuart is set mainly in the South. Her near-future police procedural series featuring Detective Hannah McCabe is set in Albany, New York. Visit Frankie at frankieybailey.com.

Charlotte Hinger

Charlotte Hinger is a novelist and Western Kansas historian. Convinced that mystery writing and historical investigation go hand in hand, she now applies her MA in history to academic articles and her depraved imagination to the Lottie Albright series for Poisoned Pen Press. charlottehinger.com

Vicki Delany/Eva Gates

Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers. She is the author of more than 25 books, including the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series, the Year Round Christmas cozy series, the Constable Molly Smith books, standalone novels of suspense, the Klondike Gold Rush series, and novellas for adult literacy. As Eva Gates, she is the author of the national bestselling Lighthouse Library cozy series from Penguin. Find Vicki at www.vickidelany.com and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/evagatesauthor/

Mario Acevedo

Mario Acevedo is the author of the Felix Gomez detective-vampire series. His short fiction is included in the anthologies, You Don’t Have A Clue: Latino Mystery Stories for Teens and Hit List: The Best of Latino Mystery, and in Modern Drunkard Magazine. Mario lives with a dog in Denver, CO. His website is marioacevedo.com.